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Master Java with these introductory books

Do these newly released books for Java beginners live up to their predecessors?

By John Zukowski, JavaWorld.com, 05/18/01

Introductory Java books are a rather popular bunch. If you're interested in Java programming, you have to start somewhere. Most people pick up at least one book to get them started. More popular ones are those that have been around since the beginning of Java time -- close to six years now. Core Java (Prentice Hall, 2001) is one of those books and is already up to its fifth edition. Does anyone else remember when this book was only one volume and 622 pages? It's now spread over two volumes with more than 1,700 pages. While I don't mean those earlier books aren't any good (I'm working on the fourth edition of my own Mastering Java 2), sometimes a book's first edition is its best version, as the author isn't trying to jam new content into an old structure.

In this article, I'll review six introductory texts for Java. All of these books are first editions, not rewrites, and have all been released within the last year. I'll reveal if any of these books stand up to the older set of updated, introductory Java texts.

In alphabetical order, the six books reviewed here are:

• Beginning Java Objects, Jacquie Barker (Wrox, November 2000)
• Essentials of the Java Programming Language, Monica Pawlan (Addison-Wesley, May 2000)
• Java 2: A Beginner's Guide, Herbert Schildt (Osborne, December 2000)
• Java 2 Weekend Crash Course, Julio Sanchez and Maria Canton (Hungry Minds, December 2000)
• Java: Your Visual Blueprint for Building Portable Java Programs, Dr. Ernest Friedmann-Hill (Hungry Minds, February 2001)
• Professional Java Programming, Brett Spell (Wrox, December 2000)

Table 1 below provides a quick review of the main characteristics of the six books:

Table 1: Introductory Books Overview
	Beginning Java Objects	Essentials of the JPL	Java 2: A Beginner's Guide	Java 2 Weekend Crash Course	Java: Visual Blueprint	Professional Java Programming
Price	9.99	4.95	9.99	9.99	6.99	9.99
Total Pages	660	300	570	430	300	1,100
CD-ROM / Source Code on Web	No / Yes	No / Yes	No / Yes	Yes / No	Yes / No	No / Yes
Java Version	1.3	1.2	1.3	1.2*	1.3	1.3
OO Basics	Excellent	Average	Good	Average	Poor	Poor
Language Basics	Poor	Poor	Excellent	Good	Good	Poor
Client Side	Good	Good	Poor	Average	Average	Excellent
I/O	Average	Average	Average	Good	Average	Average
Threads	None	Poor	Average	None	Average	Good
Networking	None	Average	None	None	Average	Average
Server Side	None	Good	None	None	None	Average
Level	Objects Beginner	Beginning - Advanced	Beginning	Beginning	Beginning	Intermediate - Advanced*
Scale: None, Poor, Average, Good, Excellent A star (*) in a field means the review of the specific book provides further details of the ranking.

For the most part, the above table is self-explanatory. After "Java Version," the rows describe the level of coverage, if any, each book offers on that topic. "Client Side" includes the coverage level for such topics as applets, AWT, Java 2D, and Swing. "Server Side" includes coverage of JDBC, servlets, JavaServer Pages (JSP), RMI, and the rest of the Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE). The final row describes the appropriate reader level.

A more detailed review of the individual books follows, including a comparison to the older beginner books. Is it time you stray from the classics and try something new? Read on and find out. Beside each book's title is a star rating, which is based on my review of the book's quality, level of topic coverage, and appropriateness for its target audience. One star is equivalent to a poor rating, and the highest rating (five stars) translates to exceptional coverage.

 

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